I am young and fairly new to Austrian economics, but am an avid supporter of it. I joined debate team at me school to support the view, and have already converted a few friends. There is one question that stumps me though. If anarchism, or anarcho-capitalism as you might want to call it, is so good, then how is Somalia such a mess. They are a completely anarchist country, and it is chaos and is an economic and social hell-hole. I was just looking for links or educated views from the Mises community on why Somalia is such a bad example of anarchy, if the free market is so much more efficient. Thank you everyone for your help.
Someone on another message board posted this paper on the progress Somalia’s made since becoming stateless.
They’re doing fine. They’re just run by pirates instead of emperors.
The question is: if statism works, how do you explain us?
I know it does not John Ess. Our country’s keynesian, and even progressive socialst, policies are destroying and have destroyed our country A LOT. There just aren’t too many examples of anarchism, and the few there are, although I am in favor of anarcho-capitalism, seem to be nightmare countries.
Fact is, Somalia wasn’t exactly an economic paradise before their government system collapsed. You can’t expect a country (for lack of a better term) to go from complete ruin to an economic powerhouse in a few years.
True anarchism comes about not because no one is able to gain control of the government, but because people actively reject government. Somalia is not an example of people rejecting government. They do not have a foundation of property rights.
If Cuba became anarchist for a couple years, and then it was still worse than the USA, would we say a stateless society doesn’t work?
No.
The comparison is always to the country before the transition. Not other countries.
In addition, Somalia didn’t come to be something of a stateless society by means of an intellectual transition, as Austrians generally advocate.
Exactly, and stateless Somalia > pre-stateless Somalia.
Please see my blog post on this very subject. Immediately after the withdrawal of the US from Somalia in 1993, it very much resembled a true anarchy. Ten years later, with the advance of the ICU in the South and with the recent interference of Ethiopia, the AU and other foreign actors, Somalia is far from the near-true anarchy that it was in the mid-90’s.
Clayton -
As Leeson notes on his article on Somalia, it is not obvious to Westerners that we’re doing so bad. After all, the average Westerner - even poor Westerners - likely owns a car, lives in an air-conditioned home and has a refrigerator, decent clothes and can likely afford to eat out from time to time. That’s not bad by world standards.
I suspect that Leeson is making an unspoken implication that the West benefits from the plunder of non-Western countries by Western governments (usually in cooperation with the authoritarian governments of the non-Western countries being exploited). This is a sort of colonialist tax which transfers wealth from the rest of the world to us (not to mention the inflationary tax we impose on foreign nations by inducing them to use US dollars as a reserve currency) - which means that the average US citizen is better off by virtue of the US government. The only catch is that a portion of his fortuitous wealth is made possible by plundering people in poor countries.
Clayton -
Well, you could describe it as more of an “intellectual reversion” to the older, more just system of customary law. The Somalis have a long history of tribally-administered customary law which resembles, in some characteristics, the old English common law. In throwing off the Barre regime, Somalis were rejecting the new-fangled statutory system of Western jurisprudence which is a kind of intellectual transition back to what they originally had.
Clayton -
Nonsense - Michael van Notten, one of the few real experts on Somali law, rebuts this claim here. He says, “Except for a few rules, the Somali laws recognise everybody’s right to private property, which includes the principle of free trade. In so doing, the Somali custo-mary law comes quite close to natural law. That is why, for a good under- standing of Somali law, it helps to have some knowledge of natural law.”
The Somalis were (and largely still are) a tribal people and, while a tribe is a kind of “government” since it does exercise coercive powers, the law of the Somalis is clearly customary, not statutory. There is no highest authority who may issue laws. This, in my opinion, is the truest sense of statelessness.
Clayton -
Is Somalia more of a mess in anarchy than it was before?
Somalia is a “nightmare country” in the sense that the ultra communist regime that they overthrew laid waste to Somali society. It also does not help that the UN has put out a bounty for millions of dollars, called “foreign aid”, to the first thugs that invest in enough weapons and impose enough terror to extort regular sums from the population.
Do they have to pay taxes to the local warlord? If so, they don’t recognize property rights.
I doubt that “warlords”, a.k.a petty thieves, are a problem. There was probably one incident and some useless journalist portrayed it as normal.
Does Somalia look like a great place to live? I will admit it’s GDP is growing, but it’s not growing THAT well compared to the rest of the world,
The FEE has a podcast that gives a good detailed lecture on Somalia. Simply, Somalia is an extremely poor backward group of people who seem to be up against the government of the entire Western World. What do you expect? If you look at Somalia, you will see that in some areas they are way ahead of the their African neighbor nations and in others a little behind. But unlike South Africa, etc, Somalia has been invaded several times recently and has come under attack from the international community for pirates using their shores.
I think the reason for the invasions and the pain the nations of the world dump on Somalia is that they are afraid that Somalia will become an African economic powerhouse and point out the uselessness of central government.
Governments are jealous of their power and hate freedom. Look at the USA, In the 1860s two sides fought a preview to WW1 just to keep 11 states from leaving the country.
I always respond this way to people who want the gift of government for Somalia: Give them 10 years of open trade and no political interference. If Somalia is not one of the most productive countries in Africa by that time, then I will admit I was completely wrong and you can do your worst to give them more central government. No politician in their right mind would take this bet.
If you’re a statist, please explain Somalia before its state’s dissolution and after…